Recollections

Dick Clark, Class of 1952 (the last graduating class): What is it that motivated parents to send their kids away to a boarding school particularly when those kids are in the lower grades. I could have never done it. I used to go down to the lower (main) floor where the K through 3rd grade kids lived and see some of the younger one's crying from home-sickness. I was older and I wanted to go and I loved my four years at CHMA. It was a phenomenal learning experience. Unfortunately almost all of the military schools that existed during the 1940s and 50s have closed. And those that were military have dropped that option such as Harvard High School in N. Hollywood where I spent the following three years.

During my four years at CHMA, I encountered many memorable characters besides those mentioned on the Staff page. In the military section, a real standout was Lt. Savage. He was strict, fair and a good leader always in command. One day on the field, we were sitting around with him and he recited the complete Gunga Din by Kipling. That poem has been a favorite of mine ever since. Impressive Capt. Blanchard was my teacher and also my football coach. He could punt a football an astounding 100 yards. I watched him do it several times. Then there was the gardener who could do a perfect imitation of Bing Crosby. One teacher, Milton E. Hampton who went by Capt. Hampton although he was never military, tried his hardest to convert us all to Catholicism. He did not succeed. Another teacher, William Poth, used to take some of us out to dinner, plays and other venues on his own time and at his own expense. I cannot forget Tom Lorenzini, basketball and football coach, teacher and magician who put on excellent shows in the auditorium. Capt. Bernau was a good guy and a good leader, Capt. Walski was pretty laid back and busy making a profit selling collector's stamps to the cadets. He had an original block of the US 1918 inverted Jenny Air Mail stamps (today's value about a $million for the block of 4). Then there was a squirrelly guy named Dosier who needed help. He didn't last long.

The characters were not restricted to the staff, there were some interesting cadets also. One in particular had this problem with pyromania. On two occasions he started a fire on the upper floor in a storage room of extra mattresses. They caught him the second time and shipped him off to Cal. Jr. Republic (Boys Republic), a reform school. There were some sad case kids that had been virtually abandoned by their families. Sent off to board with no visitors and no time off campus. In several cases these kids turned out to be serious behavioral problems. In spite of this, we were not a haven for bad kids. The school was selective in who they took in and really sought out the cream of the crop. As you peruse these pages, remember that the oldest kids in the school had only reached their 15th birthday.

My friend and classmate, Rowland Parker, put it best in the Forward to the 1952 yearbook: "As we settle down in new centers of learning we shall write new chapters, each with its own private foreword; but no matter how far we travel there will always exist in some corner of our minds the familiar, tantalizing phrase: Remember when we attended CHMA?. Some of us will recall only the bright side--the dances, the parties, the classroom jokes. Some of us certainly will remember swallowing the bitter medicine of conduct and academic detention. From time to time many of us will think of the friends we made; but one day all of us will realize that whether we laughed a lot, or cried a little we changed while we stayed at Cheviot Hills . . . grew up a bit . . . advanced in wisdom and knowledge and understanding. And now . . . flaunting as it were last year's Latin . . . let us look back once more--just long enough to say: AVE ATQUE SALVE! [Hail and Good Health]."